A land of lakes, mountains and banking surrounded by the rest of Europe, Switzerland is living testimony to HemisFair's theme.
The country represents a working confluence of four separate cultures. In the Swiss pavilion at HemisFair'68 (G 104 next to the main gate in Las Plazas del Mundo), the artist-designer Rene Creux has turned wit into a powerful teacher.
Dominating the interior, for instance, is an immense mechanical bird, wings flapping and wheels cranking as its sole passenger, William Tell, yodels Swiss folk songs and strews alpine flowers over all visitors.
The animated, mechanical man and his winged, mechanical steed both symbolize and spoof Switzerland's acknowledged genius for mechanical precision and technological progress. Other exhibits within the pavilion tell the story of Switzerland as a banking nation, as the home of international organizations and as a participant in man's attempt to make space travel feasible.
The subject of time, of course, threads through the exhibit-beginning even with the facade of the pavilion itself. Embellishing the facade is a kind of medieval merry-go-round clock topped by a figure of Cronos, the mythological Greek monster credited with swallowing the hours to make time pass.
A loudspeaker voice continually reassures the approaching visitor by explaining that the interior of the Swiss pavilion is designed to show how accurate time-keeping can free man from pressures.
Learn more about the Swiss pavilion :
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